Office of the Provost

Conferences

April 2013
An exploration of the intersection of biotechnology, ethics, language, religion, and science is both timely and critically important. This national forum will provide a location for leading scholars from a variety of disciplines to discuss the vital topic of how language is shaping medical ethics, religion, and competing visions of our biotechnological future.

November 2012
“Exile and Interpretation” explored the impact that forced exile had on the scholarship, including especially the hermeneutical strategies, of refugee scholars, most of whom were Jewish, who fled Germany and Austria in the 1930s. Theodor Adorno, Hannah Arendt, Erich Auerbach, Hans Baron, Walter Benjamin, Max Horkheimer, Karl Löwith, Karl Popper and Leo Strauss, among others, were discussed.

October 2012
A two-day conference aimed at bringing together scholars working on two questions often treated separately. The first day’s program featured scholars working on questions generated by attempts in Muslim-majority contexts to grapple with minorities in their midst; the second day’s program highlighted research on the experiences of Muslim minorities throughout the world.

April 2012
During three dynamic days in April 2012, over 250 higher education leaders, executive leaders, and national thought leaders gathered at Wake Forest University to discuss and debate the role and value of the liberal arts education for 21st Century careers.

April 2009
Wake Forest University hosted top admissions officers and leading researchers from Berkeley, Duke, Harvard, Ohio State, Princeton, Texas, Virginia, Yale and other universities along with the director of data research for U.S. News & World Report for the Rethinking Admissions conference. Participants presented papers and discussed the latest research on standardized testing, diversity, creativity, college ratings and how to evaluate success in college.

October 2009
The Office of the Provost sponsored this conference celebrating the five-year anniversary of the Wake Forest University Center for Nanotechnology and Molecular Materials. The conference brought together some of the top nanotechnology experts in the southeastern United States for presentations and discussions and included a keynote address from Dr. Thomas Webster of Brown University.

February 2010Innovative business leaders, leading researchers, and policy makers met on Wake Forest’s campus to discuss energy use and policy in their current and future forms. The event included a public lecture by New York Times columnist and author Thomas Friedman. Other headline guests included James Rogers, CEO of Duke Energy, and Aubrey McClendon, CEO of Chesapeake Energy.

March 2010
This national conference explored the ways in which institutions of higher education are adapting to support the collaborative endeavors of faculty and staff and the roles that administrative leaders can play in this evolving arena. Participants had the chance to learn from the concrete case studies presented and to develop strategies for implementation on their own campuses.

March 2010Wake Forest University invited distinguished politicians and scholars to discuss the future of law and religion in face of many challenges posed by globalization. In recent years, we have seen religion reestablishing itself as an important force to be reckoned with in the contemporary world. Once often sidelined in the West as a private matter or an antiquated estate from the past, religion seemed to be on its slow path to social insignificance. Yet, religion has proven itself to be resilient and still strong. From social conservatism to religious fundamentalism to progressive politics, religion once again wants to help shape the social and political landscape of contemporary societies. Whether and how such religious activism should be countenanced remains a matter of urgent practical importance.

September 2010This conference explored how writers, filmmakers, dramatists, artists working in all forms of media, philosophers, and critical and cultural theorists have responded to the prospect and reality of global crises. Moreover, it asked how the methodologies of scientific and humanistic inquiry might offer new insights into our age of global uncertainties.

April 2010This conference brought together the perspectives of athletes, academics, administrators, and journalists to open a direct and ongoing dialogue around the variables that impact today’s student-athletes of color. The conference examined the issues of race and intercollegiate sports through a wide and comprehensive lens.